Repurposing Take 2

Today, I attempted a dress for Janey. I found an adorable white with tiny yellow polkadots shirt that I really wanted for myself, but there was nothing even similar in my size, nor do I actually *need* another shirt. So Janey gets it. Having learned from Breanne's dress, this time I cut off the "skirt" part of the dress first, and left it full. I cut out the top (in the fashion of Made's 90 Minute Shirt), using the original neckline again. The pattern on the fabric is SO light, so I decided I might need a little more contrast in it. I found an old, stretched out yellow t-shirt of mine, and cut a strip out to put in the middle of the top and bottom of Janey's dress. The last step was sleeves, which I was able to cut out of the extra scraps leftover from the top of the shirt. After I pieced it all together, I came out with this:




Janey really likes it, and insisted on wearing it all evening. Once again, though, it's just so-so. But better than Breanne's, I think. Progress. :) I want to take the yellow strip in, make it about 1, maybe 1.5" across instead of the 2.5" it is now. And while I do that, hopefully I can fix some of the gathering. This is really my first experience in sewing with knits, and it's definitely been a challenge. Maybe someday I'll sew with a pattern, and get things that actually come out looking nice... but first I'll have to learn how to do that. :/

In the meantime, Breanne loves her new dress, too... but mostly just likes to make crazy faces at the camera:

T-shirt to Dress Refashion

Yep, that's right, I'm jumping on the repurposing boat. And I'm excited about it. :)

In case you haven't heard, Shade is going out of business. So naturally, I had to go to their liquidation sale here by me, and get a few things for myself. While I was there, though, I noticed that all of their extra large clothing was marked down to $5. Now, that's not an *amazing* deal by my standards, however, for nice, new clothing for the girls (a $5 comfy dress? yes please!), I figured I could spend that much. So, here is my first project using one of the shirts.

I wanted to make Breanne a dress out of this sea-green-ish fabric. I ended up cutting the original sleeves off the shirt, chopping the shirt up into the size of dress I wanted, and re-sewing it all back together.


I added the shirring for a little detail, but I'm not totally sold on it--I think the dress either still needs something else, or needs to be a little bit shorter (maybe a drop waist? I wish I'd thought to do something different with the waist before I chopped it all off and made it skinnier, if that makes sense to any of you). I can't decide what it is, though. I still think it came out pretty nicely:



and Breanne insisted on wearing it all nice tonight (hence the chocolate milk stain down the front... good thing I'm taking pics with my phone so you don't notice it so much... :)), but I didn't think to get any pics until after she went to bed. Maybe next time, since she seems to like it enough to wear it many times.

Playing Hard

This morning I put Cailin down to play with the toys, and noticed a few minutes later that she was being awfully quiet.


Being almost 8 months is hard work, man.

Ariel in the Pink Dress

So... I was seriously planning on buying costumes for my girls for Halloween this year. Don't get me wrong, I love to sew. I'm just not quite good enough at clothing yet.

Breanne, on the other hand, had different ideas. When I asked her a few weeks ago what she wanted to be for Halloween, she very specifically requested to be Ariel, in her pink dress (she wears it to dinner, when she thinks the fork is a dinglehopper, in case you're trying to remember it). Her response has not varied in the slightest every time I've asked her since then. So, I looked around a bit for the costume, but it's difficult to find such a specific costume for a reasonable amount of money (read--I can't find it anywhere but on Etsy, cheapest I've seen is $240...what!?!). And so... I am now making costumes. Yes, costumes with an "s," because Janey now also wants to be Ariel in the pink dress. Only sometimes Janey's Ariel dress involves purple, too... we'll see what she ends up with. :) In the meantime, I've pretty much finished Breanne's dress--I may add some more trim (it's actually supposed to have some white around the collar and waist, as well as a lace-ish bottom), but if it doesn't get done, it will work as is. I tried to get a decent picture, but someone couldn't stop twirling around the living room in it, so this is what I got:





It's not perfect (obviously), but I wanted to make it big, so she can play in it for a while. Also, the fabric, while slightly stretchy, is not overly so, and I wanted her to be able to get in and out of it with ease. I can't decide if I should figure out something for the shoulder part to make it poofier, or if I should just leave it alone... The important part is that she loves it, which she does. Now I just need to get working on Janey's. :)

P.S. Not sure if you noticed my KCWC button on the side--this week is the Kid's Clothing Week Challenge, and this has been my project for days 1-3. I want to sew some actual clothes for the rest of the week... but we'll see. I feel like I need to get Janey's costume done, too, so she doesn't feel left out. :/

Bumpers!

I don't know how many of you have pacifier babies, but Cailin is definitely a pacifier child. As such, she is constantly throwing/spitting/knocking them behind her crib. I have to try to fit under her crib to fish them out of the back corner, and it's just been a pain. Since I had a bit of fabric leftover from the girls' quilts (just need to be put together, but my machine is seriously BEGGING for a service... weird sad noises and everything... ugh), I decided to try my hand at making a set of crib bumpers to help solve the pacifier problem. I'm pretty ecstatic about how they came out:




I finally finished them last night, and couldn't wait to put them up. I put Cailin in bed when she was almost asleep for a nap this afternoon, but her slightly open eye caught sight of the new bumpers, at which point her eyes flew open to examine her new surroundings. She hung out, awake, just talking to the colors, for about 20 minutes. And when I came back to get her out, she'd moved her head to the one opening in the corner so she could see out. Pretty darn cute.



Linking up to Amy's Sew and Tell. :)

Bunkbeds!

So you may recall that back at Christmas time, I was very excited for Breanne and Janey to move to their big girl beds--Breanne was getting a twin, and Janey was moving up to the toddler-size bed, in preparation for Cailin to have the crib. Well, that worked. Kind of. If you've never been to visit us, you may not know this, but we live in a very small house. The girls' bedroom is about 9x12, if I remember correctly. And we're trying to squish three girls in there. I didn't realize just how big the twin bed was, either. To make a long story short, their room has looked like this since Cailin arrived and was ready for a crib:



Way, way, WAY too crowded. We moved almost all the toys and books downstairs to a playroom, but even still, just the 3 beds and a dresser were taking up the entire room. So I talked to my dad about the possibility of toddler-sized bunkbeds. While I would've liked to do twin sized, I had several reservations--#1 was space, #2 was safety of toddlers on big bunkbeds, #3 was ability of the girls to climb to the top of twin bunkbeds, and #4 was our ceiling fan--I didn't want the girls getting hurt, obviously. I reasoned that toddler-sized bunkbeds could be built much closer to the floor and much smaller, resolving all of those issues. So I was supposed to help my dad make them... but that just didn't happen. He's amazing, and I don't go up there enough to really help. But at any rate, he made them, and my mom sanded and painted them (another big job, she's amazing too). And tonight, they delivered them to my home, and we set them up.


The girls LOVE them, and so do I! It's so great for them to have nice, safe, reasonably sized beds, finally! And with our kids being as close as they are, I think they'll get a lot of great use. Thanks very much to my wonderful parents for this gift. I love them. :) My only regret is that Breanne doesn't get to use her quilt anymore, but don't worry, I should have some new ones (real quilts, I've been participating in a quilting group for fun) done soon, and they'll be all matchy matchy. :)

New Skirt

So one of my most favorite creations... a skirt I created pretty much out of my own head. I saw a tutorial months ago on doing a knit waistband, and thought it was kind of genius. When I saw this fabric, I knew just what I wanted to do with it. Because of the thickness of the skirt, though (the fabric itself is actually quite light, and so definitely needed to be lined), I couldn't do a twirly skirt type (tried it, and totally failed, believe me!), and so ended up cutting an A-line based on a skirt I already have and love. And I love it. Maybe someday someone will take a picture of me in it, and I'll post it. But I'm not taking a picture of myself. Today, at least. :)

Linking up to The Train To Crazy's blog party this week.

What's Wrong With this Photo?

Besides all the mess on the table?

Did you spot her?

Cailin is quite the rolling navigator these days... and today, she ended up under the table. She was so excited and happy about it--too cute. I love the peekaboo stage. :)

Things I Never Want to Forget Part 3

--Cailin's first little (slightly silly) pony:

--The way Janey has started using the words "actually" and "just kidding." As in "Act-she, my wan' wear this shirt, mom," and "Mom, my wan' wear this shirt... jus' kid-deen! my wan' wear this one!" Lately we've been going through a lot of clothing changes.

--Breanne proclaiming today "the bestest day ever!" after having swim lessons and pb & honey sandwiches, grapes, and a fruit-by-the-foot for lunch, knowing that she got to watch a new Care Bears movie after she finished.

--Janey telling me "My not your friend, mom!" after I told her "I think you're stinky, my friend."

--Cailin's latest favorite game, where I try to stand her up on my lap, and she either flat out refuses, or she stands long enough to catch my eye, drops her head (like she's acting shy), and sits down as fast as she can.

--Conversation with Breanne tonight: "Why'd you name me Breanne?" "Because I thought that should be your name. Do you like your name?" "Not really." "Oh, really? What do you think I should have named you?" "Maybe Scout or somethin'." "What? Where did you hear that name?" "From someone I never met before maybe. Maybe that be my name, maybe."

--How much Janey just LOVES to swim around, as long as I'm holding on to her a little bit.

--Breanne telling Cory about her favorite Labyrinth characters (Ludo and the little dog guy) while Janey starts singing "Dance, Magic Dance."

--Cailin's new bark/grunt of happiness, usually done with a funny face squint.

--Janey's curly fro:


--How much the girls love to dance together (and how Janey likes to hold both hands, or hug-dance, but Breanne insists on one hand on the hip, one in the hand).

--Endless giggles from all the girls, generally in response to each other.

Life is good, my friends. And like I explained to Janey today--yes, even if we're family, we can be friends.

Day... several later. :)

It's been about a week and a half since I first started seeing Cailin's spots, and she's doing amazingly better now. They're all scabbed over, and most have healed up. Just a few last spots (ironically, the worst ones, the ones that are still left, are the first ones she had). Isn't she looking great?:


And also, because I can't help but compare the girls in my favorite outfits--here is Janey wearing the same shirt Cailin is, just a couple weeks older than Cailin is now.


And Breanne, different outfit, but same expression:


Every time I start to think about how different they all look, I am reminded of how much they are the same. I love these girls.